Japan's largest business daily Nikkei said that the Nexus 7 is taking over mainly because of price

Apple's iPad is notorious for being king of the tablets, but in Japan, this may no longer be the case.

Market research firm BCN conducted a survey in Japan last December to see what the tablet market share was looking like. Out of 2,400 consumer electronics stores in Japan, the iPad had 40.1 percent of the market while Google's Nexus 7 claimed 44.4 percent.

Japan's largest business daily Nikkei said that the Nexus 7 is taking over mainly because of price. The Nexus 7 costs $199 USD while the cheapest iPad -- the iPad mini -- is $329 USD. Both the Nexus 7 and iPad mini are 7-inch tablets.

However, the report did note that some stores in Japan have run out of the iPad mini, which may have affected the results a bit.

Google's Nexus 7 is a tablet made by ASUS. It runs the latest version of the Android operating system, 4.1 Jelly Bean, and packs various features like a 7-inch IPS display with a 1280x800 resolution, a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor, a 1.2 MP front-facing camera, NFC, Bluetooth, 802.11n wireless, GPS and 16GB/32GB versions. The 16GB version starts at $199 while the 32GB runs $249.99.

Is it? Dang. I thought it was fromteh iPad 3... All the more reason to not pay too much for Apple.

I have a Nexus 7 too... a WAY better bang for your buck... I wouldnt mind seeing a next gen iPad mini with a retina level lscreen and faster SOC. That might be worth $299. Defintely not this 1024x768 thing. Should be $150

The iPad mini is a crime against nature. Old hardware, outdated screen and a price point that is much higher than it's competition.

Now if it had the iPad 3 or 4 SoC, a higher res screen and was priced for $329, I could see that. But they are basically warming up last weeks dinner and serving it at a black tie gala prices.

The Nexus 7, iPad3 and Transformer Prime are the kids, although I get quite a bit of time with each as they ask me to fix things or beat certain game levels. But I'm very happy with my Nexus 10. Best tablet I've ever used.

The iPad mini is about one thing: form factor. It's very light weight given the screen area (10.4g per square inch, which AFAIK is much less than any other device) and has high build quality. From that lone perspective, it's a decent piece of engineering.

It sucks in every other way, however, and IMO intentionally so. Apple still wants most people to pay $500 for a tablet, so they didn't want it to be remotely competitive with the iPad3/4. They're just trying to nab some cream from the sub-$500 market and leave the rest to the others. Rational consumers aren't worth their trouble.

quote: The iPad mini is about one thing: form factor. It's very light weight given the screen area (10.4g per square inch, which AFAIK is much less than any other device) and has high build quality.

Its build quality is compromised by how thin and light it is. Watch the "Will It Blend?" video when he smashes the three tablets against the side of the blender. The Nexus 7 bounces back to its original shape. The Kindle HD mostly bounces back. The iPad mini instantly deforms.

It's possible to make something too thin and light. I think Apple made a mistake going for a 7.85" screen instead of 7". I'm pretty sure they did it so the long dimension of their 4:3 aspect ratio screen would be longer than the 16:10 Android devices. That way both web pages and movies would be bigger on the iPad mini than on 7" Android devices. But the price for that larger size was a device which was uncomfortable to hold in one hand. To try to make it more comfortable to hold, they cut down the weight. Structural strength suffered as a consequence.

"Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment -- same piece of hardware -- paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be." -- Steve Ballmer